Shocked and Numb
by PhantomTwilighter2009
Summary: Spencer Reid thinks back to what happened in that high school bathroom and how Morgan's small gesture helps the young man tremendously.


**Shocked and Numb**

A friend once told me that you don't always need a gun to take down the unsub and from that point on my words became my own secret weapon; I had a degree in psychology after all and my eidetic memory helped me to have a wide vocabulary, but something happened today that hasn't happened in a while. The case had been simple enough, or as simple as they can be since we're normally called in when the LEOs can't solve the case themselves: two teenaged girls, best friends in fact, had been kidnapped and one girl was dead before we arrived and the other was still alive. As we began to dig through the girl's life we discovered that her and her father had been put into a witness protection program because her father had once had a rather…questionable occupation that involved some very powerful crime families. I could explain every single detail of the case if I wanted to; I could even repeat it from memory, from the time Hotch called us into the conference room until I left to look around the high school that the two girls once attended. But I can't repeat a word after that because I didn't absorb anything afterwards. I was in complete and utter shock after what I had witnessed in that high school bathroom.

I can recall rushing into the bathroom with my gun drawn and a speech on my tongue, but the speech I had had originally planned out was meant for our unsub, not for the father. Yet I quickly switched a few words around, changed the tone I had mentally set, and proceeded to talk the older man down. I had tried to convince him that shooting a young man in front of his daughter was not a smart choice, that it could possibly haunt her for the rest of his life and that there would have been a decent chance that he would get arrested which in turn would have caused his daughter to be put into foster care. I had asked to stop the violence, to stop putting the young girl next to him into the middle of it and I had thought I had gotten through to him. I had honestly thought I had gotten to him, but his daughter who had definitely gone through hell and back had started to beg her father to kill the teenaged boy in front of him. Now, I have heard a lot of things being said and exchanged throughout my years with this job and I know I've spoken my fair share of shocking things too, but this…this deserved a category all on its own. I understand that she had gone through several traumatic experiences in her life and that the man she was begging to be killed was her kidnapper, but no normal person would wish that on another human being. It was like her moral compass had been turned off temporarily and she forgot that the man who had tortured her and kidnapped her was also a person.

There were so many voices echoing in the bathroom: mine trying to calm the father down, the daughter pleading with her father to put a bullet into the cowering young man on bathroom floor, and the young man on the floor, a constant mantra of 'I'm sorry' and 'I didn't mean to'. Then the father finally spoke up and my hopes of taking the man quietly out of the high school were soon dashed as a simple sentence came out of his mouth.

And then an all too familiar bang of a gun.

All I could see was the blood running down the wall. I could see parts of his skull and brain stuck to the dirty tiles and if it wasn't for the absolute shock that I had felt I'm pretty sure I would have vomited on my shoes. I had vaguely heard the rest of the team running down the hallway, hardly noticing when Hotch had entered the bathroom. I had tried to convey to him that I had tried to talk to him. That I had tried to stop the father from shooting the unsub. I heard Hotch mumble back that I had done a good enough job from what I had been dealt with and that was all I could do.

Now, I'm on the BAU jet and I'm not even entirely sure how I got from that godforsaken bathroom to the jet, but I somehow managed to do it. I'm sure Morgan and JJ helped a little, but I can't be 100% sure about that. I know they tried to get me to talk, telling me that keeping everything in wasn't going to do me any good. They were probably worried that this experience might make me start up Dilaudid again and while I'm not denying the cravings and the want and need to forget what I had just witnessed, I've worked too hard to get to where I am and I'm not about to give it up because of cravings.

Staring out the window, my thoughts began to drift off for the first time since the shooting when I felt a familiar, comforting presence beside me. I didn't even have to turn my face to know exactly who it was.

"Pretty boy, you've been awfully quiet since we boarded the plane. Are you sure that there's nothing you want to talk about?"

I just nodded my head slightly, my hand began searching for his; I just needed to feel his warmth, letting me know that I was still on the plane and not back in the bathroom. Letting me know that I didn't need to give into the drugs in order to forget. Maybe even letting me know that I didn't completely fail this case. I was grateful when I felt his rough hand grasp my thin hand, enjoying the feel of his thumb stroking over my hand.

"Just…Just stay here for a while? I don't care if the team figures out about us or not. I just want you to sit here with me for a bit. That's the only thing I can possibly think of that will help." It truly was the only thing I could think of. Me! The man who has an IQ of 187 can only think of one solution that will make me feel better.

So that's what we did for the rest of the flight: Morgan held my hand tightly in his and every once and awhile he would look over at me with concern shining deeply in his dark eyes, but I pretended to not notice. I merely stared out the window, my thoughts slowly drifting off as I eventually fell asleep.


End file.
